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Like NTFS, exFAT can pre-allocate disk space for a file by just marking arbitrary space on disk as "allocated". For each file, exFAT uses two separate 64-bit fields in the directory: the valid data length (VDL), which indicates the real size of the file, and the physical data length.
The increase in disk drive capacity over time drove modifications to the design that resulted in versions: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT. FAT was replaced with NTFS as the default file system on Microsoft operating systems starting with Windows XP. [3]
Formatting a disk for use by an operating system and its applications typically involves three different processes. [e]Low-level formatting (i.e., closest to the hardware) marks the surfaces of the disks with markers indicating the start of a recording block (typically today called sector markers) and other information like block CRC to be used later, in normal operations, by the disk ...
If needed, it will install a bootloader such as SYSLINUX or GRUB onto the flash drive to render it bootable. [9] It also allows the installation of MS-DOS or FreeDOS onto a flash drive as well as the creation of Windows To Go bootable media. [10] It supports formatting flash drives using FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, UDF and ReFS filesystems. [11]
Formatting tools or non-DR SYS-type tools may clear these bits, but other disk tools should leave bits 15-8 unchanged. 0x02A 0x1F 2 Version (defined as 0.0). The high byte of the version number is stored at offset 0x02B, and the low byte at offset 0x02A. [4] FAT32 implementations should refuse to mount volumes with version numbers unknown by them.
A basic data partition can be formatted with any file system, although most commonly BDPs are formatted with the NTFS, exFAT, or FAT32 file systems. To programmatically determine which file system a BDP contains, Microsoft specifies that one should inspect the BIOS Parameter Block that is contained in the BDP's Volume Boot Record .
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Windows 7 also supports the newer exFAT file system. As the ReadyBoost cache is stored as a file, the flash drive must be formatted as FAT32, NTFS, or exFAT in order to have a cache size greater than FAT16's 2 GB filesize limit; if the desired cache size is 4 GB (the FAT32 filesize limit) or larger, the drive must be formatted as NTFS or exFAT.